Snow
by AMarguerite
Summary: For Toff's livejournal challenge. Fantine runs out of things to sell, and thinks about snow.


A/N: Written for Toff's livejournal challenge.

Disclaimer: Victor Hugo created _Les Miserables_, not I.

* * *

When she was younger, Fantine had loved the snow. The soft white flakes would flutter down and carpet the cobblestones, and she would skip happily through the white carpet of snowflakes until her feet grew blue and purple from the cold. She would twirl, just to catch the snowflakes in her golden hair, then run to a window and admire her reflection. When the snow began to soak her clothes and turn her rags an even darker shade of gray, she would huddle in an alley, finger-combing the tangles out of her hair and sitting on her cold, frozen feet to warm them. 

At the farm where she worked for a while, she would stare out of the windows, smiling as the trees in the orchard became coated with snow, as if the chef had gone mad and thrown flour everywhere. When the other servants weren't looking, she ran outside and danced, feeling as pure and clean as the light through the upstairs windows.

When she lived in Paris, she would sit by her window, wrapped in all her shawls and the blankets from her bed, warm forehead against the pane of glass she liked to pretend was ice, and dreamily watch Paris clothe herself in snow-white furs before falling asleep. Sometimes, Fantine would smile secretly to herself and press a hand against her stomach, pretending to feel the heat of her child through her white dress, and wonder if Paris, too, was hiding some new life. When she ran out of firewood for her little fireplace, she would run outside, trailing shawls, and dance until the snowflakes melted on her unbound hair and upturned face. She would rush back inside, grabbing abandoned clothing and laughing. Her room would feel warm, and she would feel as clean and pure as the snow that had swirled around her in its spinning, melancholy dance.

Now, Fantine trudged through a snowstorm, blindly, insensitively, dulled to her surroundings. She felt numb, but only noticed enough to think that she was lucky: the constant painat thetop of her left shoulder-blade was gone. The snow had soaked the remnants of her tattered half-boots and her feet were cold. Snow coated her lifeless blonde hair, giving it an icy, wet sheen. It soaked the fabric of her gray dress, but Fantine marched onward, protected from feeling the weatherby a cloak of fear as palpable as the damp gray muslin clinging to her back.

She soon came upon a woman in front of an officer's café, trudging resolutely through the snow, sometimes blowing on her hands to make them warmer. Fantine paused and choked back a dry sob that turned into a cough. _For Cosette_, she reminded herself. _For Cosette_.

The woman paused to push back her dull brown hair and rub her wet and shining face with her cold, boney hands. She was talking to herself. "It's cold out. God, it's cold. If I had a customer, things would be better. I'd be warm at least. God it's cold. I'm not going to get me a customer in all this snow."

Fantine clutched at the neck of her dress and tremulously approached. The woman turned to march back in front of the café, with a swirl ofdamp green silk.

"M-mademoiselle," Fantine whispered, voice catching. "How… how are you… who do you w-work… could I meet…?"

The woman glared at Fantine. "Open your mouth, girl. You're taking up me time, and I could be getting me a customer and going back to me apartment. God, it's too cold for a chat. C'mon- speak!"

Fantine clutched the bodice of her dress, twisting her hand in the fabric. "Wh-who do you work for?"

The woman rubbed her pale, cold arms, and mused aloud. "Oh. You want to know who me pimp is? You a nark of some kind?"

Fantine, eyes filling with tears, shook her head. The snow swirled around them like lace drapes, softening their movements. "I… I need work. I- Ihave a... I need to earn a hundred _sous_ a day, and I... I thought, 'May as well sell the rest', since I've got nothing else left to sell." She closed her mouth and ran her tongue along her teeth, feeling the gap where her incisors used to be.

The woman marched to the café and back again, rubbing her arms and muttering to herself. "God, it's too cold for customers. Since Marietta got the pox, we're one short, anyway. God it's cold. Armand'll be pleased with me for this. He might move me somewhere warmer, though God knows where that would be. God, it's too cold to be allowed!" Fantine stared up at the sky, watching the limitless gray expanse of clouds shed layers and layers of endless, purifying white snowflakes.

"Right girl. You interested in whoring for Armand?"

Fantine nodded slowly, eyes shut. The snow melted on her shoulders and collected in the soiled bonnet she held in her hand.

"Come along, then, girl. We haven't got all night, and I need to be back here before the factories let out. That's when I get most of me customers." The woman grabbed Fantine's arm with a cold, talon-like hand. Fantine stared at her in no little terror, blue eyes wide and frozen.

The woman hesitated. "Look girl, you coming? You scared, or out of your wits, or something?"

Fantine felt her eyes begin to thaw and melt into hot tears that stung her cold cheeks.

The woman looked at her pityingly. "It's not so bad, most days. It's only when it's cold enough to freeze your dress to your back that's bad, and then if you get a customer or some brandy, it's warm and you're not freezing your toes off trudging through this slush. Let's go. You get warm, walking, sometimes."

Fantine let herself be dragged along. The snow swirled around her like lace, like broken lump sugar, like the folds of the Virgin Mary's mantle, but Fantine only felt the slush of churned up snow as it clung to her skirt and dragged her down, and the snowflakes thudding against her neck and bowed head like stones.

She suddenly felt as if, no matter the snowfall, she would never feel clean again.


End file.
